So what do you do with a Snetzler? David Bridgeman-Sutton reports on the discussions at the time ~ with only a few embellishments. The essence is all here...

News that the Morecambe Snetzler was to be sold reached the Canon Precentor of an English midlands cathedral. The main organ was in fine fettle, but the chamber organ was in a state of collapse. The price of the Snetzler was right - could the governing body, the Chapter, be persuaded to agree

The Precentor: There is an excellent Snetzler becoming available - we really ought to buy it.The Sub-Dean: What's a Snetzler?The Archdeacon: Sort of dog - everyone knows that.The Chancellor: We must be careful. There is no provision in our rules for us to acquire dogs and the vergers wouldn't want to exercise them.The Archdeacon: What about St Mary Redcliffe's cat? It was a regular and devout attender for many years. Noted for its respectful behaviour to the clergy, too.The Dean: We could certainly do with more of that.The Archdeacon: My point is that if you can have official cats, then you can have official dogs - it's probably illegal to discriminate between them . I'm no cat lover - dogs are a different matter entirely.The Sub-Dean: Why always cats and dogs? Snakes make excellent and affectionate pets. I had a python once that I was training to collect the newspaper from the doormat - later, I hoped it might go on to fetching my slippers. It was pure misfortune that the postman pushed a handful of letters into the box at the wrong moment. What happened was the man's own fault entirely. Any serpent would have been startled - so would a cat or a dog.The Dean: Or a budgerigar.(A slight pause ensuing as the Chapter pondered these words of wisdom, the Precentor explained the nature and historic importance of the organ on offer)The Archdeacon: But we have an organ already - a very loud one too. Keeps waking me up with a start after the Dean's more soporific sermons.The Dean: What's the point of filling the place up with more antique junk? There's no publicity value for me in that. Half a column in the local paper if |'m lucky. It's an expensive way of buying media coverage.The Sub-Dean: Another organ won't help us to attract youth. We must devise a situation with a vital dynamic in which the cultures and sub-cultures of the young can achieve a bland environment in which to discover themselves . They don't like traditional musical instruments.The Archdeacon: They liked the grand-piano well enough. I saw five of them dancing on it. That was after they'd wrenched off the keys and before they projected it down the aisle as an unguided missile. They'd regard an organ as a new challenge.The Dean: I hope I live to see the day when the last cathedral organist is thrown out with the organ after him - and if the pointed end of one of the thirty-two foot pipes gets him in the solar plexus, that's all right by me. What we need is a pop group, not a Snetzler.

All except the Precentor and the Archdeacon: Hear Hear! ​

1774 Snetzler formerly at Wynnstay-Hall, Wales, now at National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.
(Thanks to Martin Goetz and Dominic Gwynn at www.goetzegwynn.co.uk)

P.S. The Stiller index of Australasian organs compiled 1978-1986 - records a Snetzler organ in the Anglican church at Te Aroha. Does anyone know it?The site is on www.vicnet.net.au under document/stiller.

ADDENDUM:1) Dr Ross Wards e-mails to say that the Te Aroha organ is not by Snetzler. He adds that, when it was last overhauled, a handwritten signature "Renatus Harris" with the date 1691" was found in the main windchest.2) The ex-Morecambe Snetzler is now at Clare College, Cambridge